


If You Want Love

by Kangofu_CB



Series: Captain Carter [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 0 to LIT in 0.5 seconds: the Steve Rogers Story, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, F/M, I know this says Captain Carter but Peggy is NOT Captain America, M/M, Modern Bucky Barnes, Shrunkyclunks, Steve Wakes Up and everything else is not canon compliant after that, basically if I re-wrote the MCU it would go like this, look the beginning is kinda sad ok my beta said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 10:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15750291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB
Summary: Steve chuckled wetly, running the pad of his thumb along the edge of the photo.  There was a date at the bottom corner - 11/25/81 - in yellow digits.  He stared at the photo until it was blurry, tears in his eyes and an aching sort of grief in his chest.  A tendril of something that felt a little like hope curled alongside it.“What do I do, Peggy?”She smiled down at him, some of the ferocity and determination he remembered from their early days mixed in with affection.“The world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes, the best that we can do, is to start over.”AKA a Shrunkyclunks canon divergence where Steve and Peggy had a quick wedding just before he boarded the train to capture Zola.  Seventy years later, Steve has to start over.Enter Bucky Barnes and Peggy’s matchmaking skills.





	If You Want Love

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a one shot canon-divergence idea and I got about, oh, 1/3 of the way through my plans and realized it was not, in fact, a one shot. But I really, really didn't want to start another sixteen chapter long fic.
> 
> So this is the first part in a series, expect more of this 'verse from me. I have IDEAS. 
> 
> I'm sorry for your broken heart.
> 
> Many thanks, as always, to Clara for the beta read. All mistakes are still my own.

Steve woke up with the immediate knowledge that something was very, very wrong.  

He kept his eyes closed and his breathing regulated as he considered his circumstances.  He  was warm, clean, and dry.  His belt was a shade too loose and his socks felt thin and oddly slick against his feet.  It was hot but not sweltering, and there was a radio playing in the background.

 

Steve hadn’t been warm, well-fed, or dry in months. 

 

And the game on the radio was all wrong.  It was a game he’d seen, a game he’d watched the Dodgers  _ lose _ and everything about the situation was  _ wrong _ .

 

The last thing he remembered was apologizing to Peggy for missing their dance as he aimed a plane at the ocean-

 

Steve sat up and looked around.

 

Everything was entirely too clean, and wrong in a million tiny details that he couldn’t quite articulate but which felt alien and-

 

A nurse came in the room.

 

No.

 

A woman  _ dressed as a nurse _ came in but she was wrong in the same subtle ways that everything else was wrong.

 

Steve did what he’d always done best.

 

He got angry.

 

“Captain Rogers,” the woman began, until Steve turned his furious gaze on her face.

 

“Carter.”  He corrected her, and she blinked in surprise.

 

“Steve,” she tried instead, and that only served to infuriate him more.

 

She spoke English with a barely-noticeable accent, one that Steve thought was probably midwestern, maybe, or upstate Pennsylvania.  Certainly not Brooklyn, but also not German or something else Slavic. He decided that was enough for him to at least ask some questions, instead of busting out of the room into an unknown situation.

 

“Get someone in here to tell me what’s going on,” he interrupted.  “Before I decide I’ve been captured and need to escape.”

 

She did.

 

Nick Fury talked a lot of nonsense, Steve decided, but he sounded relatively sincere.

 

“Captain Rogers,” he greeted, and once again, Steve corrected him to no avail.  

 

Fury explained.  Steve had been trapped in ice for  _ seventy years _ .  A science expedition had found him, brought him back to New York, and thawed him out.  They’d been trying to ease him into the future, not put him on guard when they put him in the imitation of the past.  Fury told Steve about S.H.I.E.L.D., explained that he was hoping to start something he called the Avengers Initiative.  Described the evolution of the SSR, of Peggy and Howard, and now there was a point.

 

“What happened to Peggy?” Steve asked, halfway through his explanation.  Steve could already see where it was all going. They’d happened upon an unexpectedly viable supersoldier, and gosh golly gee wouldn’t it be nice if Steve decided he wanted to help out their semi-secret government organization.  Even better to sweeten the deal was the knowledge that Agent Carter, as Fury kept calling her, had helped found it.

 

The fact that no one referred to her as Steve’s  _ wife _ was more than a little disconcerting.

 

Either they didn’t know, or they thought he didn’t know, or this was a much more elaborate trap than he suspected.  

 

Fury had taken him on a small tour of the office they were housed in, leaving behind the badly-done imitation of 1945 and taking him out into the brightly-lit and overly busy future, where agents hustled around the building and glanced at Steve from under their eyelashes.

 

“Agent Carter is retired, Captain.” Fury answered him.  

 

Steve stared at him for a moment, thinking about it.

 

Peggy would be very old by now.  They’d also never be able to find someone who could pretend to be her - Steve and Peggy had known each other as intimately as two people could.  If Fury was trying to trick or trap him, it would be easier to say Peggy was dead. It would be hard for Steve to prove otherwise.

 

Still.

 

“I’m not interested in anything else you have to say until I’ve spoken with her.”

 

Surprisingly, Fury didn’t argue with him.

 

They sent a junior agent to drive him over.

 

Steve wasn’t stupid enough to think that Natalie Rushman was really a junior anything.  Peggy Carter had taught him everything he knew about spies, and he knew a spy when he saw one.  Long red curls and pencil skirts didn’t quite hide the calculating way the woman watched everything he did, cataloguing his reactions, whether they were measured or automatic.  Steve was certain she was reporting back on him to Fury.

 

It didn’t matter.

 

The building Peggy lived in - an assisted living facility, the sign declared - was large and spacious and smelled like hospital cleansers and old people.  It gave Steve a painful twisting sensation in his chest.

 

They should have been here together.  Or living quietly in a flat in England, or a brownstone in Brooklyn.  They’d had  _ plans _ .

 

Rushman signed him in at the desk, having a low-voiced conversation with the receptionist that Steve pretended not to hear.  Peggy, it seemed, was having a ‘good’ day, whatever that meant. They were led down a long hallway, up two floors, and into a small, cozy apartment.

 

Peggy was waiting for him, perched in an armchair with a blanket on her lap, her hair greying but her smile and eyes just the same as the last time he’d seen her.

 

It was like a punch to the gut.

 

Someone had obviously warned her, because she didn’t look surprised to see him.  Just sad.

 

“Oh darling,” she murmured, and held out a hand.

 

Steve buried his face in her lap and cried.

 

Rushman, out of a sense of either pity or embarrassment, left them to it.

 

He didn’t cry long.  Steve had always been more inclined to furious lashing out than tears.  Peggy smelled different - like paper and talcum powder and just the hint of perfume, which she’d never worn when Steve had known her. She stroked her fingers through his hair the same, though, and for the moment, that was enough.  He closed his eyes and let it be enough, and mourned the life he might have had. Years with Peggy, years of love and laughter and children-

 

Steve sat up.

 

“Pegs, what about-”  He stopped. Wondered if he should even ask, because surely she’d have mentioned,  _ someone _ would have mentioned a child.

 

Peggy smiled, but she didn’t look happy.  Or at least, she didn’t look like Steve would expect, if she were delivering good news.  Resigned, maybe. Like the ghost of happiness. Peggy leaned a little to the side, and Steve shifted to give her space.  The small table to her right had half a dozen photos on it, including one he recognized of himself, Howard, and Peggy, leaning over a map table in some forgotten bunker.  The one she picked up, however, was unfamiliar. Peggy was in it, dressed smartly in a dark blue skirt suit and heels, standing next to a tall, dark-haired man in a dress uniform.

 

When she passed it over, Steve accepted it.  The man, he realized, was young, barely an adult, his dark hair cut short and combed neatly, and he wasn’t smiling, though there was something about his face that made Steve think he might want to.  Peggy was beaming in the photo, a smile Steve remembered from a bombed-out Church in London from seventy years before, though it felt like only a few weeks ago to him.

 

He had Peggy’s eyes.

 

And, Steve realized as he sucked in a wheezing breath, Steve’s nose.

 

He was missing the crooked bump that came with having it broken multiple times, but it was, without a doubt, the Rogers nose.

 

Steve’s eyes flew up to meet Peggy’s, and she reached out to rest her hand on his face.

 

“My nephew, Grant, when he graduated from West Point.”

 

Steve blinked.

 

Peggy gave him a tight smile.  

 

“When you… when your plane went down, the next few weeks were chaos.  We were on a mad hunt for the remains of Hydra, and at the end of it all, SSR offered me an agent’s position.”  She paused, lips pursed in a familiar expression of frustrated disappointment. “They didn’t know about our circumstances, of course, or they wouldn’t have done.”  She took a deep breath. “When I told them about us, they explained to me that I could be Agent Carter of the SSR, or I could go home Captain Rogers’ widow, but not both. They wanted me for undercover work.”

 

Steve felt his face flush in fury.

 

Peggy continued on, as though she couldn’t recognize all the signs of his temper.

 

“I told them I needed some time to think, to grieve, and went to my brother Michael’s for a few months.  Watched the world try to assemble itself into something resembling order. Grant was born while I was there.  Michael’s wife, Anna, doted on him.”

 

Steve could picture it, almost.  Peggy alone and pregnant and wanting to save the world.  Peggy had always wanted to save the world, and she’d been good at it.  He could even see how she’d have thought the baby better off with her brother and his wife, with two parents and none of the stigma of having a single mother.  Steve had grown up with a single mother, with a father dead in a war thousands of miles away, and he couldn’t say, even to himself, that she’d made the wrong decision.  Peggy had never been meant for the sort of quiet, hidden life raising a baby alone would have required.

 

Reaching out, Peggy took the photo frame out of Steve’s hands and prised the back open.  Once she had it off, she pulled the photo out, handing it to Steve, along with a faded, folded up piece of paper that had been tucked behind the picture inside the frame.  When Steve unfolded it, he discovered it was their marriage certificate, signed by the old priest Peggy had sweet-talked into a quick, quiet wedding, and their own signatures at the bottom.  It was dated January 31, 1945. Only a few days before he boarded the train to capture Zola and nearly died, less than a week before he crashed the Valkyrie into frigid waters to save the world.

 

To make it  _ safe _ for the tiny family he had desperately craved.

 

Steve had signed it Steve Carter, because he’d never known his father anyway, his mother had died years before, and being a Carter meant a lot to Peggy, even if she’d never said so out loud.

 

There was no notarization, no stamp to show she’d ever filed it.

 

The only evidence they’d ever been committed to one another was in his hand, had only ever been seen by the two of them and a priest.

 

“Grant never knew,” Peggy said, softly, “though he might have suspected.  We looked quite alike, after all. Then again, Michael and I looked quite alike as well, so perhaps not.”  She paused again, and reached quietly for Steve’s hand. “He was a lovely boy, and a good man. Stubborn and righteous, like someone else I knew.”

 

It occured to Steve, all of a sudden, that she was speaking in the past tense, and his gut knotted up in dread.

 

“He died in an embassy bombing in Nairobi in 1998, Steve.  I’m sorry.”

 

What was left of Steve’s world crumpled.

 

Steve wished he  _ had _ died.  There was nothing here for him, this future he didn’t know anything about, full of strangers and secrets, and he honestly didn’t want to be here.  Didn’t want to have this grief, this life he’d missed out on, a child he’d never met that was already gone, his whole life spent without Steve getting to meet him.

 

Peggy was stroking his hair again as he clutched the photo and the paper to his chest, and didn’t cry so much as he let his grief tear him up inside, leaving him aching and hollow and raw.  Steve left his face on Peggy’s knees for a long time, long enough for his neck to feel stiff and his knees to ache. Long enough for his whole self to feel empty.

 

When he sat up, Peggy stared down at him from a face lined with grief and exhaustion, and he saw, almost for the first time, how old she really was.  He sat up and wiped his face, trying to erase the remnants of the devastation from his expression.

 

“I’m sorry, Pegs.  I should let you rest.”

 

He should go hide, that’s what he wanted to do.  To hide away from the world and lick his wounds and fade into obscurity.

 

Peggy shook her head.  “I have something else for you, before you go.”  She held out another photo, this one smaller and the colors more crisp.  Steve recognized the man in the photo as Grant, though he looked much older, and he had a ridiculous mustache that almost made Steve smile, except for the way it twisted his heart up.  The man -  _ Steve’s son _ \- was softly smiling down at a blanket wrapped bundle, a scrunched up newborn face haloed with wisps of light-colored curls.

 

“Her name is Sharon.  I’d like to say that she’s a sweet girl, but honestly, if she had been a boy I would have insisted they name her Steve.  She’s never met a fight she could back down from.”

 

Steve chuckled wetly, running the pad of his thumb along the edge of the photo.  There was a date at the bottom corner - 11/25/81 - in yellow digits. He stared at the photo until it was blurry, tears in his eyes and an aching sort of grief in his chest.  A tendril of something that felt a little like hope curled alongside it.

 

“What do I do, Peggy?”

 

She smiled down at him, some of the ferocity and determination he remembered from their early days mixed in with affection.

 

“The world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes, the best that we can do, is to start over.”

 

*

 

Steve retired.

 

Fury, well, Fury lived up to his name.

 

Unfortunately, there had been a media storm at the finding of the Valkyrie, and no less of one over the idea that Steve himself had been recovered.  The press clamoured for his attention, the American people demanded his time, and Fury wouldn’t stop showing up unannounced wherever Steve happened to be, whether it was the apartment S.H.I.E.L.D helped him procure or at the newest exhibit in MOMA.

 

Steve did exactly one interview.

 

Natalie (who he learned was really Natasha, and so much more than a simple junior agent) helped him to make the arrangements, in conjunction with Peggy’s advice and permission.  

 

James Alpin was a well-respected journalist with the New York Times, and Steve sat down and talked with him for several hours, discussing a huge variety of topics as Steve rambled, most of which they both knew would probably never make it to print. He was kind enough to allow Steve to review the final piece before it was published.  Several photos accompanied the interview, most of them of Steve, but he definitely included a copy of the un-notarized marriage certificate to Peggy.

 

_ The Life and Times of Captain America _ was well-read, well-circulated, and mostly well-received.  There was a bit of a flurry over the revelation of his and Peggy’s relationship, but Alpin had been smart enough to get a direct quote from Peggy confirming the circumstances, and people mostly accepted it and moved on.  People had always thought of Steve as Peggy’s old flame anyway, so for many it was an expected revelation.

 

Nowhere was any mention of anything about a baby - it was a secret Steve was unwilling to part with - though there was some speculation in a few gossip rags.

 

Most of the interview focused on the sacrifices Steve had already made, up to and including his  _ life _ , and the life he might have had, along with his desire to lay the shield down for a while and find out who Steve  _ Carter _ was.

 

Steve requested time, privacy, and space to acclimate to the world around him.

 

Mostly, he didn’t get it.

 

He moved apartments twice in six months, went toe to toe with the Army for back pay and benefits and  _ won _ , and visited Peggy as much as either of them could stand.  

 

Steve read voraciously and kept mostly to himself outside of Peggy and Natasha.  Despite their unconventional beginnings, Nat turned out to be a good friend and mostly-trusted confidant, helping him learn to navigate modern conveniences like Starbucks and the internet.  Slowly the fervor around his reappearance died down, and when Steve moved for the third time after he found reporters camped out on his block, people seemed to forget he existed.

 

The third morning after his most recent move, he walked out the door to go for a run and ran into a ghost.

 

Steve froze, slack jawed and staring at the profile of the slim, blonde woman who was exiting her own apartment across the hall.  

 

The woman was the spitting image of Sarah Rogers, from her blonde curls to her strong jaw line.  She looked exactly as Steve remembered his mother looking before she’d gotten sick, and, ironically, she was dressed as a nurse in pink scrubs.

 

It felt like one big cosmic joke, except Steve wasn’t laughing.

 

Steve had never seen an adult picture of Sharon Carter - Peggy didn’t have any recent ones, because Sharon worked for S.H.I.E.L.D as an agent, did a lot of undercover work, but there was no doubt in his mind that this was her.  Steve wondered, wildly, if there was a Carter out there anywhere that  _ wasn’t _ throwing themselves headlong into danger.

 

He wasn’t even sure he could blame Peggy, if he were being honest.  Those were clearly his genes in play. Blonde, blue-eyed Sarah Rogers personified, but apparently with Steve’s bristly attitude.

 

By the time the woman turned to face him, Steve had managed to close his mouth and slap a smile on his face.  She jumped like she was startled, but her eyes scanned over him in a very professional threat assessment, before holding her hand out in greeting.

 

“Hi, I’m Kate.  You must be my new neighbor.”

 

He accepted the handshake, felt the callouses on her hands that made no sense for a nurse but made perfect sense if you spent a lot of time firing a weapon, and introduced himself.

 

“Hello Kate, I’m Steve.”

 

She jogged down the stairs ahead of him, her keys jingling in her pocket, and Steve headed to the same park he ran in every morning and wondered if his life would ever be his own again.  He texted Natasha about the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent across the hall as he pushed through the front door of his building. Maybe he should have let it lie, but he figured Nat would get a kick out of him recognizing an agent - she’d found it funny when he’d called her out on being a spy, after all - and it wouldn’t do to let Fury get complacent.

 

He really didn’t want to move again, but he also really didn’t like being monitored by government agents.

 

On the other hand, he had the perfect excuse to get to know his granddaughter, with her being none the wiser, which was a weird if accurate thought.

 

Three weeks later, aliens attacked New York, and Steve strapped on the shield once again.

 

The press had a field day.  There were dozens of photos of Steve in worn jeans and the kevlar that Natasha had thrown at him when he arrived to the battle, punching aliens in the face.  He could see the appeal - he looked absurd in his casual clothes, throwing around the same shield he’d used in 1944, which Nick had oh-so-conveniently left in his apartment during one of his impromptu visits - but that didn’t mean Steve had to like it.

 

In fact, he hated it.

 

More than that, he hated that he was being touted as saving the world again, despite his making several press statements reminding everyone that  _ Tony _ had saved the world, or at least New York, by flying the nuke  _ that the government had authorized for use on a civilian target as acceptable collateral damage _ into a rip  _ in time and space _ . Tony Stark had, Steve continuously stated, nearly died protecting the entire city while Steve was busy punching aliens in the face.

 

The unending news cycle meant a return to his early days of hiding in his apartment, the address of which had miraculously  _ not _ been leaked to the press this time, and ordering his groceries online.  He only ventured out on rare occasions in aviators and a baseball cap and tried to escape notice while he waited for the fervor to die down again.

 

Consequently, it was several weeks before he saw Peggy again, though they kept in phone contact, and as such it was a surprise to arrive for their weekly tea and find she already had company.

 

Handsome company.

 

Peggy was sitting in her small living room in an armchair, her usual teapot and cups on the table.  What wasn’t usual was the man sitting on the sofa across from her. They were laughing about something when Steve walked in after a perfunctory knock, and Steve’s breath got caught in his chest when they looked up at his entrance.  The man looked young - late twenties or early thirties, probably - with dark hair that was cut long enough to brush his cheekbones and tuck behind his ears, blue eyes, and a wide smile.

 

Steve shot Peggy a look to let her know she absolutely was  _ not _ subtle, but she just smiled serenely at him.

 

“Steve, darling, I’m so glad you could make it!  I want you to meet James Barnes.”

 

James didn’t look all that surprised to see him, and he wasn’t wearing that awkward look of awe that Steve loathed and was unwillingly becoming accustomed to seeing at first meetings.  He held his hand out to the man to shake.

 

“Nice to meet you,” Steve said as James accepted his handshake in a warm, firm grip.

 

“Likewise,” James said, releasing him, “but please, call me Bucky.  Only my Ma calls me James, and only when I’m in trouble.”

 

Steve grinned at him as he took a seat on the opposite end of the sofa.  Peggy leaned over to pour tea, but Steve beat her to it, filling his own cup and topping hers off and adding a bit of sugar. Peggy raised her eyebrow but didn’t comment, just accepted the cup wordlessly.

 

“James did the photo in  _ Time _ magazine that you liked, Steve, remember the one?”

 

There had been only one photo from the so-called Battle of New York that Steve hadn’t despised on sight.  It had been printed as part of a spread of photos that had been focused on the recovery efforts rather than the battle itself, and the only one of Steve that hadn’t been of him either punching an alien or fumbling the pistol Natasha had tried to give him.  

 

Guns had changed a lot since 1944. 

 

The photo in question was taken at a shelter in Brooklyn, where Steve spent the better part of two days hauling rubble out and supplies in.  The building was structurally sound and was allocated as temporary housing for women and children whose homes had been damaged in the attack.  Steve had taken a short break on the third day he was there, waiting for more furniture to arrive, and he’d ended up giving an impromptu art lesson to some of the kids in one of the rec rooms.  The photo in  _ Time _ had shown just that - dirty, rumpled,  _ normal _ looking Steve, crouched at a low table, showing kids how to sketch.  It had been captioned simply  _ Steve Carter assists in relief efforts _ .  

 

Steve had the photo framed in his living room, along with another one of all the Avengers and himself at Tony’s for game night from a couple of weeks ago.  Saving the city together tended to make one friends.

 

“I do,” he answered with a genuine smile, turning to Bucky.  “Thank you for getting my name right.”

 

Bucky snorted a laugh and Peggy rolled her eyes.

 

“You only took my name to rile Nick up.”

 

Steve shrugged.  She wasn’t wrong. When Fury had needed to make Steve into a twenty-first century person, complete with Social Security number and identification, Steve had insisted on Carter as his surname.  His marriage, he argued, was legal to  _ him _ , regardless of whether it was actually recognized by the U.S. government.

 

But mostly, yeah, he’d wanted to piss Nick Fury off. 

 

Nick Fury had pissed him off, after all, and it had seemed reasonable at the time.  Steve wasn’t about to back down now, and it was too late anyway. His drivers’ license (which he hadn’t had to take a test for, everyone had just assumed Steve Rogers aka Steve Carter knew how to drive, which he didn’t disabuse them of, having technically learned to drive in Nazi Germany) said Carter, after all. 

 

Bucky snorted a laugh.  “So your marriage really wasn’t legal?” he asked, a bit uncertain.  It wasn’t a touchy subject, nearly a year having passed since Steve woke up, but they had so very seldom addressed it in public that the other man probably thought it might be.

 

Peggy laughed.  “After a lifetime of illicit relationships-” and here it was Steve who huffed with laughter, Peggy shooting him a glare- “the only person I was ever legally married to was Angie, god rest her soul.  We went and got a license as soon as New York legalized same sex marriage.”

 

There was a pause as Bucky absorbed this information, Peggy eyeing him carefully while he blinked in surprise.  Her marriage to the actress she’d been lifelong partners with wasn’t common knowledge, but it wasn’t quite a secret either.  Angie had passed away mere weeks before Steve had been found in the ice.

 

“I think you’d have liked her, Steve,” Peggy mused.  “Much more than Lorraine, anyway.”

 

Steve rolled his eyes.  “I didn’t  _ not _ like Lorraine,” he argued mildly.  

 

Lorraine had been pushy and brazen in a way that had rubbed Steve the wrong way.  Peggy had known him before the serum, had liked the man he’d been before. Lorraine had always seemed to be more interested in the packaging than his personality.

 

“Yes, well, she was a minor misjudgement on my part, before I discovered you had a bit of type.”

 

Bucky appeared fascinated by this exchange, and Steve briefly wondered how well she knew him, considering nearly all their private history was currently being bandied back and forth.

 

“What type?” Steve asked with amusement.  He hadn’t thought he had one, other than a preference for quick wit.  And red lipstick. Or a sharp jawline.

 

“Brunettes.”  She paused with a sly smile on her face, and Steve knew what was coming before she opened her mouth.  “How  _ is _ dear Timothy?”

 

Steve rolled his eyes again.  “Deaf as a post, I think, considering how loudly he criticized the way I held my gun in that editorial the  _ New York Times _ ran.  There was never anything between me and Dum Dum, Peggy. You know that.”  He waited a beat, then wrinkled his nose. “His mustache was horrendous.”

 

It was old ground, a running joke they’d been over time and time again, since the Howlies had been conscripted by General Phillips, though she’d occasionally made the same joke about some of the other guys in the unit.  She always came back to Dugan because she knew how much Steve had  _ loathed _ the man’s ridiculous mustache on an otherwise handsome face. 

 

She shrugged delicately.  “It gets cold in the Alps, or so I’ve heard.”

 

Bucky was glancing back and forth between the two of them like it was a tennis match, looking equal parts amused and horrified.

 

“What’s wrong Mr. Barnes?” Peggy asked, “Did you think the twenty first century invented sexual deviance?”

 

The other man laughed out loud.  “No, I was actually just wondering if you were  _ sure _ you aren’t really married, because you sound like either an old married couple or siblings.”

 

Steve snorted tea up his nose.

 

Some previously unnamed tension disappeared after that, and the three of them chatted like old friends.  Steve learned that Bucky had grown up in Brooklyn as well, though not in Steve’s old neighborhood, and that he’d been a professional photographer for several years, for  _ Time _ and other publications, and that the photo of Steve was up for consideration as  _ Time’s _ Photo of the Year.  

 

Bucky was sharp and sarcastic, and didn’t seem at all intimidated by either Steve or Peggy, and Steve liked him immensely.  Peggy, of course was absolutely smug by the time her energy began to flag and Steve recognized it was time for them to excuse themselves.

 

“I’ll walk out with you,” he told Bucky impulsively, as they stood to leave.  “Just let me say goodbye to Peggy.”

 

Bucky smiled, gave Peggy a brief hug, and stepped away to wait for Steve by the door to the little apartment.

 

“You’re not subtle,” Steve told Peggy as he hugged her goodbye, feeling her frail shoulders under his arms.

 

“I’m a spy, darling, I’m exactly as subtle as I have to be.  And you’re rather thick-skulled.”

 

Steve tugged a hat over his head and slid his sunglasses up his nose as he and Bucky exited the building, and the other man made a sound of amusement.  Steve turned to him with a raised eyebrow he hoped could be seen over the glasses.

 

“I just wondered - does that actually work?” Bucky asked.

 

“Does what work?”

 

“Your ‘disguise’,” Bucky answered, making air quotes around the word disguise, much to Steve’s delight.  He gestured at Steve in a vague, all-encompassing way, his eyes trailing from Steve’s shoulders to his knees and back.  “You’re kind of… noticeable.”

 

And wasn’t  _ that _ interesting.

 

Steve smiled, tugged his glasses down so he could look Bucky over in a more obvious way, and then shrugged.  “No, of course not. But people  _ think _ that I think it’s a disguise, and take that to mean I want to be left alone, so mostly they leave me alone.  Or the ones with manners do, anyway.” He pushed the sunglasses back up and stuck his hands in his pockets, matching Bucky’s pace as they headed down the sidewalk towards the nearest Subway entrance.  Every few steps their shoulders and elbows brushed, but Steve didn’t make any moves to walk further apart and neither did Bucky.

 

Steve wasn’t taking the subway; he hated the subway, and had his entire life, even before he took up twice as much room as the average person, so he generally walked or took his bike.  Bucky was taking the subway back to his place though, he’d said as much to Peggy, so this was where they would be parting. If Steve wanted to see him again, now was - well, it wasn’t his  _ last _ chance, probably, because Peggy was nothing if not persistent, but it would be embarrassing for all parties if Steve didn’t handle it himself.  

 

He knew from experience exactly how persistent Peggy could be regarding attractive people she thought Steve might be interested in.

 

Picking men up in the twentieth century was probably different than it had been in 1945, but it couldn’t be that hard, right?

 

When they paused on the sidewalk at the subway entrance, Steve reached into the inside pocket of his jacked and pulled out the little notebook and pencil he kept there.  Steve had kept a pencil and paper in his pocket for as long as he could remember - first to sketch whatever caught his eye, back before he joined the army, and then after because it had come in handy for jotting down notes or information he came across in hidden Hydra bases - and today was no exception.  He scribbled his number down in neat, blocky digits, then ripped the page out and tucked the notebook and pencil away again.

 

He hesitated, for just a moment, but Steve had never been a coward.

 

“You wanna get a coffee sometime?” Steve asked.  There. That was fine - neutral, inoffensive. If Bucky wasn’t interested, there was nothing for him to be upset about.  

 

Bucky blinked up at him in surprise and then smiled. “Yeah?  Yeah, that sounds great.”

 

Steve handed him the slip of paper.  

 

Bucky pocketed the note without looking, stuffing it into the front pocket of his jeans, which made his shirt ride up and the jeans ride down and  _ yeah _ Steve was looking.  Bucky noticed him looking, because the smile changed from surprised pleasure to something just this side of sinful. He made a pleased little humming sound and tucked his fingers into the back pockets of his jeans instead, rocking back on his heels.  “See you later,” he offered, the tone ending on an upturn, almost a question.

 

“Call me,” Steve said, gave Bucky one last once-over, and walked away.

 

He didn’t make it a block before his phone was buzzing in his pocket.

 

_ It’s 2013 Steve, people don’t call, they text. _

 

Everyone always expected Steve to text like he was composing formal letters, but Natasha had given him a crash course in modern communication, and Clint made sure he was up to date on the latest memes.  

 

He sent back a picture of Grumpy Cat and stored Bucky’s number in his phone.

**Author's Note:**

> Look I realize that Steve probably could not have legally taken Peggy's name in 1945, and frankly, I don't care. Steve Rogers, the feminist America deserves. 
> 
> I took away Peggy's Alzheimer's because I hated that plot device.
> 
> If you're sad, my beta reader called me a monster already, so just know that I'm aware of how awful I am and I am sorry!!!!
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr if you're so inclined! [Kangofu-cb](https://kangofu-cb.tumblr.com/)


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